Paint the Roses Red
by xStaticxTelevisionx
Summary: In which a girl is racing for her life due to the most ridiculous of reasons and a boy has no idea what to do about this strange girl who just appeared behind his house. (Takes place in Wonderland, no AU.)
1. Chapter 1

**(Disclaimer: I don't own Heart no Kuni, that belongs to Quinrose. Nor do I own Alice in Wonderland, that belongs to Lewis Carroll.)**

 **Alright, so I know I have other stories that I need to be doing, but this idea came to me, and I couldn't not write it. It just seemed too awesome to risk forgetting. xD**

 **PS I don't know if they ever elaborated on what Alice's missing memories were (pretty sure they did. It seemed to be a key plot point) but I have not gotten there yet, which is why this is so clearly not cannon. xD R &R!**

 **-Static**

 **/*\**

The little girl dashed through the somewhat-familiar stretch of woods as fast as she possibly could. From the moment she had met her, the girl knew that the Queen wasn't exactly stable, but now?

She had come to the conclusion that the woman was a little more than unstable. She was crazy.

She had been going to kill three of her guards over a rose bush. A _plant_ , and not even because it was in bad health, but for one, simple, absolutely ridiculous reason: it was the wrong color. How could she not intervene?

The child tripped and fell into a fallen log, but now was not the time to be nursing wounds. She could hear the guards approaching, their voices loud and the baying of the hunting dogs even louder. If she did not run and find somewhere to hide, she would become subject to a fate that countless others had suffered.

The girl got up, and sped off in another direction. She quite liked her head where it currently was.

/*\

The forest was unending. No matter where the little girl went, what direction she took, she could not find the exit to the labyrinth of the woods.

For a moment she despaired. She felt just as lost as the Dame, who had zero sense of direction. That was when she caught a glimpse of color, a glimpse of something _not green_ through the branches.

The girl danced over logs and twisted through the trees with an amount of renewed energy. She had finally done it.

She had made it to a town.

/*\

The seven-year-old dashed to the side-street, her long blonde hair flying behind her like a cape. She knew she was too recognizable. No other girl had the same color hair nor hair ribbon, no one wore the same shade of bright baby blue, and even more problematic...

None of the others had a face.

But she didn't know what to do about it. For the moment, all the child could do was run, as she would be unable to pause until she got out of the Kingdom. As happy as she had been to find the town, she could have cried when she saw the colors. Everyone was clad in red. Their homes were red, their accessories were red, even the collars around the necks of the pet dogs were a bloody shade of scarlet.

She had been running for so long and she was so tired...and yet she was still within the Red Queen's realm. She had hoped to make it to the Hatter's by now.

Maybe she really would die in this ridiculous world.

Just then the period changed to night. The guards who had been pursuing her, hot on her trail, had stopped cold.

There was no moon, and it would take them several moments to let their vision to adjust. Though the girl could hardly see herself, she knew that her survival depended on this.

They were entirely distracted, this would be her only chance to hide.

So she sprinted towards the nearest house and climbed the tree next to the fencing. She dropped down to the other side, and listened as the guards got louder, approaching her hiding spot, making her heart pound in abject terror, and then noticed their voices getting quieter and quieter, as they continued down the street.

At long last, she'd lost them.

She made her way to the back of the yard, careful not to destroy the landowner's garden, and prepared to jump over the fence back into the woods when,

"Hey you!" She froze. No, no, no, this couldn't be happening! Was she really so unlucky as to have gotten caught the moment she managed to evade the guards?!

She started to feel despairing again. She whirled to see...a boy. A resident of the house?

"I-I-!" She stuttered, and then stronger, "I didn't mean to intrude! I just needed to get away! I didn't hurt anything!" She squeaked, and then looked at the person in front of her. Now that she was viewing him with both eyes, she saw that he didn't appear to be that much older than her. He wasn't much bigger either. There were no sleeves on his shirt, an accommodation for the warm weather, and so she could see just how scrawny his arms were.

 _If I have to fight,_ she said to herself, _I could probably take him._

Somewhat reassured by this train of thought, her eyes then darted to his faceless face. Shoulder-length black hair decorated his head, spiky in a manner that made it look untidy. If she looked closely enough, she could occasionally catch a glimpse of his eyes, appearing to flicker in and out of existence, sharp and green and glaring.

It was clear he had not believed her.

"Alright, now seriously." He drawled, crossing his arms. His voice wasn't very deep, so he was definitely just a kid too. "What are you doing in my backyard?" The girl, not much caring for his tone, could not help but to challenge him. Raising her chin slightly, just enough to rid herself of the illusion of meekness, she spoke.

"You mean your parent's yard?" she retorted, crossing her arms back at him. The boy's eyebrows scrunched.

"Don't change the subject. What are you doing here? Are you a Role-Holder?" He growled. For a moment, the girl merely looked at him with a blank stare, as if wondering if she'd heard wrong. Then, to his complete and utter annoyance and confusion, the girl started laughing. He knew he wasn't the most intimidating of the schoolboys - not that he'd ever admit it - but she was a _girl._ She was _smaller_ than him. She clearly knew she shouldn't have been sneaking around his house, and when being interrogated by a boy both bigger and older than her, she started _laughing_?!

He immediately decided that there was something quite wrong with her mental state.

"No," she giggled, trying to muffle the noise with a hand, "I'm...well..." she had stopped at this point, and her voice had gotten very quiet. "Y...ple...all...e...or..ner." she mumbled.

"What?" he snapped,

"You people call me a Foreigner." She snarled, a little louder than she probably should have. To this, the boy's nasty demeanor broke. His arms flew to his sides and he took a step back, looking at her a bit strange.

A Foreigner?

"Prove it." He demanded as soon as he'd recovered, standing a little stiffly. She looked to the ground.

"Umm..." She trailed off.

"I knew you were lying." He stated dismissively, before turning to walk back into the house. He figured he should probably tell his parents that a Role-Holder was in the backyard, but then a small hand tapped his shoulder.

She had pridefully presented him with a small blue vial that was only half-filled with a clear liquid.

A small blue vial that - according to the stories - only a Foreigner was allowed to hold.

/*\

After the boy had recovered from his shock, he had quickly reiterated his plan and decided to smuggle the girl into the house. It was clear that she was exhausted, and upon hearing her story, it was no wonder that she had been fighting so hard to evade the Queen's guards. He had stowed her away in the attic, sat her down on a spare blanket near the window, and now he was creeping carefully down the steps of his house to find something from the kitchen.

If the stories were true, then Foreigners weren't like Wonderlandian people. If she died, she wouldn't be reincarnated. If she died, that was it for her.

He found the thought strangely chilling. It seemed unnatural that a person could be so...fragile.

She explained to him what she had been doing earlier in the day. The objective of her Game was to fill up the vial. In order to do this, she had to interact with the residents of Wonderland, and so she had chosen to spend the day at the Castle, because she had been hoping to find the Dame, as she liked to go camping with her.

Instead she had been found by the Queen. The monarch had quickly diverted the girl's attention, and brought her out into the gardens to play croquet. That was when the Queen, the old, insane hag, had noticed that something was wrong with one of her rosebushes.

When it had bloomed, the flowered turned out to be white, rather than red.

Enraged, the Queen had ordered that the guards who had overseen the gardens be executed. The girl, unwilling to let this happen (?) had made a suggestion.

"You could paint the roses red," she had piped up, "And when they die, you can plant the red ones instead."

However, the Queen had apparently only heard "paint them red." When the bush died from the lack of sunlight and the brown and decaying plant matter marred the impeccable looks of her gardens, she had ordered the girl dead as well.

She had run from the cards for hours on end, trying to escape to no avail. It wasn't until the change to night that she'd finally gotten her opportunity to lose them, and ended up in his yard.

No wonder she had been so exhausted. Suddenly the raccoon rings around her bright blue eyes made a lot more sense.

When she had finished her narrative, she had also finished the last few morsels of the small dinner that the boy had presented to her. She knew that he was not her ally, in fact his reaction was an anticipated one at this point.

He did not want to assist her out of kindness, but rather curiosity. She didn't fully understand the strange "love" that the people here had for her, but she assumed it was a sort of survival mechanic, one designed to work in her favor (against her family's wishes, she had read Darwin's work).

She came from a world where murder was a crime of the highest degree. Here, it was a commonplace practice. Without the "love" of the Wonderlandian citizens, she would wager that she'd probably be dead by now.

The idea scared her.

Then there were the comments about "rare things". The look on the boy's face reminded her of a conversation she had overheard between a pair of faceless.

"Foreigners aren't exactly a commonality. I'm sure the Duchess will want to take her in. She loves rare animals."

If anything scared her more than the constant murder, it was that many of the people here did not view her as a person. She felt that the boy shared a similar view. He had brought her some bread and water. In her home world, this would be a meal fed to a wild dog out of pity. A person in such a situation would have been awarded something much different. If someone wished to get a person in need some food, her father told her, they would bring him into a tavern, where he would be served things like soup or steak and vegetables.

Now that she knew this boy was _not_ one of the few who would see her as equally human, she knew exactly which cards she needed to play.

"What's your name?" The boy asked. Startled out of her reverie, the girl answered.

"Alice. Alice Liddel. You?" she responded.

"Blood Dupre." Instead of speaking, she gave him a queer look.

"..."

"What?"

"That sounds fake."

The ten-year-old had half a mind to shoot the blonde beast eagerly scooping up the last of the crumbs off the makeshift rug.

/*\

The Outsider girl had wanted nothing more than to get back to Hatter Territory. Apparently that was where she was living. Why she'd want to reside with the Mafia, Blood didn't know, but they must have been treating her well there.

At least, they had yet to kill her.

Wonderland was not a big place, so the boy - having lived here his whole life - knew his way around.

 _She must not have been here very long_. He thought to himself, just barely remembering to hold the too-low tree branch aside for her. His father told him time and again to be a gentleman, but the mannerisms just weren't sticking.

They had left two hours ago, and by Blood's calculations, they should almost be there. In just a few more minutes, the duo had come across a path.

A path with a sign on it.

Blood inspected the road marker while his exhausted companion stood in the road, her bleary eyes blinking. His mood significantly improved when he discovered that he recognized the name of the town on the left side of the sign.

It was the town closest to Hatter Mansion.

Encouraged, he dragged Alice down the path, and then leaped into the woods. As much as wandering around the forest was fun, it was also tiring. He didn't like feeling tired.

In just a few more minutes, the gates materialized. Luckily for him, it was not the Twins he came across, but rather the Hare.

The Twins were insane, and to be fair, the rabbit was too. However, unlike her co-workers, she was a little more open to reason.

Blood felt slightly more confident in the prospect of his own survival as Alice slightly leaned into his shoulder, looking like she might drop then and there. He took her arm and wrapped it around his neck and took hold of her waist. Right now, he looked like a friend. If the stories were true, then the Role-Holders might not kill him if she asked them not to. He hoped so. She yawned when the March Hare took notice of them.

"Alice?!" She exclaimed, lightly leaping to the little girl's side.

"Hey Evl'n." She slurred, "I'm so tired..." And she collapsed, nearly bringing Blood with her. He let go, and glanced down at the sleeping girl nervously. Should he try to wake her up?

Immediately, the Hare looked to the faceless boy for an explanation, her hand inching towards her gun instinctively, her amber eyes glaring into the deepest depths of his mind, as if she knew each and every one of his secrets, lies, and dreams. As if she was going to devour his soul if he didn't start talking.

Who knew a rabbit could be that terrifying?

Alice forgotten, Blood wasted no time in explaining the events through his point of view, unconsciously backing up against a tree. The Outsider girl had simply appeared in the yard, and explained who she was. She then told him she was hiding from the Queen's guards, and had asked that he direct her back to the mansion. He did not want his parents to find her in the house, and so led her back, as he thought her too tired to make the trip herself.

The boy held his breath as the Hare raised an eyebrow at him and bit her lip.

She was thinking.

Her hand moved closer to her gun, and Blood's clock momentarily stopped.

Was she going to kill him?!

Her hand dropped and she moved to pick up the tiny girl.

"Thank you for bringing her back." The woman stated, "Alice comes from a culture very different from ours. Where death and violence is an everyday thing here, it's much more serious in her eyes. Her world would view ours as monstrous and barbaric, and being a child, she doesn't quite understand why it's so different. She does her best to respect what we are but..." the Hare laughed, somewhat bitterly, "She was raised to value life, as she and her people are granted but one each. Here such a thing is less than frivolous." The woman made eye contact once more. "If you ever have the privilege of meeting another Foreigner in your current life, remember that." She stated, and walked away.

/*\

When Nightmare was finished restoring another section of Alice's memory, she was lying on the floor in a near catatonic state, eyes wide with shock. Blood - who had been watching over her, as this particular memory had to be restored in the Mansion - was sitting right beside her, equally surprised.

Of course, how could he have forgotten this Rule? The Rule was that - if a Role-Holder was to meet a Foreigner before the time of their Role - they would be forced to forget it. There could be no bias in the Foreigner's Game.

As she laid stock-still at his side, Blood found himself empathizing. He suddenly understood why Alice so often complained that her mind felt violated.

 **/*\**

 **Soooo how was that? I was just sitting around, playing a game on my phone, trying to think of something to write, when I remembered something. One of the most famous scenes in Alice in Wonderland is when Alice paints the Queen's roses red. Since I can't really imagine Vivaldi ordering Alice dead, I chose to set this scene in the past. I was thinking about having her meet up with Peter - explain the whole love thing and all - but then I decided it would be more fun to write this with kid Blood. His superiority complex denotes a troubled childhood xD I imagine that he was the last boy who grew tall, he was bullied by kids bigger than him, and would need Vivi to fight certain fights for him. He was physically powerless, and so had to use his smarts to evade trouble. His opponents being other children, that might not have worked as often as he wanted, so he's learned to be afraid.**

 **Ergo, he got drunk with power when he obtained his Role xD Please leave some reviews!**

 **-Static**


	2. Chapter 2

**Dragon Alice will return soon. I promise. I just need a little bit of inspiration. Any suggestions? In the meantime, how about we throw in some plotline. R &R!**

 **-Static**

 **/*\**

Today was a very good day for Alice. Two of her favorite people in Wonderland were the Mad Hatter, and the Cheshire Cat, and the former had surprised her with a small tea party and invited the latter.

She knew that the two were not friends, but the Hatter - despite his oddly cruel behavior towards everyone else - had always been very kind and considerate of her. He'd held a certain fondness for the little girl from the moment he met her, and she had not been averse to him either. He reminded her slightly of her father, or the way her father had been before the tragic passing of her mother...

No. No, that was not worth thinking about. Right now, she would enjoy her time in her "home" with the rare guest. Evelyn had arrived at Alice's room, where she'd been cooped up for several days. The Hatter - Marcus - ensured that she would not be able to leave the ever-smaller feeling room before she had fully recovered from her ordeal in the Red Kingdom. He had been outraged when he heard what the Queen had done, and had promised her he'd do something about it. She wasn't quite sure what, but she knew the Hatter did not cheat his promises.

She had been fine with the solitude for the first several hours after her day-long nap, but after that...

The poor girl had been suffering serious cabin fever, and now the March Hare was offering escape.

"Come on Alice," Evelyn had coaxed, her rabbit ears tall, the fur shimmering in the light, "Marc asked that you come to the tea party tonight, and to tell you that-" Then the hare blinked. The girl had already darted out of the room and dashed down the stairs. She couldn't help giggling. There was no restraining an energetic seven-year-old, especially one who was tired of being cooped up indoors, so she followed slowly behind.

/*\

Evening had arrived, and soft red light doused the outdoor party table as Alice skidded to a halt. She couldn't help the wide grin that worked it's way across her face as she saw just who had been invited to her home.

"Warren!" She shouted joyfully, tackling the Cheshire Cat.

"Oof!" He exclaimed, "Hey, be careful." He teasingly chastised as he knelt down to her level. "You're still small but you could definitely knock me over." Her eyes narrowed, and she huffed,

"Of course I could. I'm just as strong as the rest of you." The tiny girl, not even half the man's size, entirely unable to utilize weaponry, declared in complete seriousness.

How could the Role-Holders not smile?

"She's adorable." The Hare stated softly from her spot at the table, turning to the Hatter, who nodded ever-so-slightly in agreement as he watched the cat entertain his young ward. The woman casually cut herself a slice of chocolate cake, and took bites between lines of conversation. "We should adopt her." She stated decisively, gazing at the little girl with an almost motherly sort of pensiveness.

The Mad Hatter sighed. Here they go again.

"You know we can't do that Evelyn." He responded, as gently as possible, doing his best not to rile her. Her eyes flickered back to his, something dark flaring in the amber depths.

"Why not Marc? Even as young as she is, she can choose to stay." The Hare maintained her calm exterior, speaking quietly, her tongue tapping the fork to catch extra bits of frosting. From a distance, everything looked fine, and even then Alice was quite distracted, but this was a conversation that Evelyn had with the Hatter many times.

More than once it had broken out into a fight, even if those instances were only when the child was absent.

Evelyn March had grown painfully close to Alice. Even after she had promised herself to the Mafia, after she had lost every bit of innocence she had, after she had been mentally scarred to the point of near insanity...

She had still ended up wanting children. She wanted that shred of normalcy more than anything, and had asked the Hatter many times if she could have one, and for years he told her "No". In their line of work, a baby would be impractical, irresponsible, and unfair to the child itself. Almost a decade of her persistence, however, eventually wore him down, and he finally rewarded her desire, giving in, unreasonable though it was.

It hadn't taken them long to figure out that she was infertile.

So when the Foreigner showed up - more than a rarity in her abnormal youth - not one week after the heartbreaking revelation, well, it wasn't a surprise that the Hare had imprinted on the girl.

"What of her family in the other world?" Marc questioned, his icy eyes steely against the woman's golden glare. His companion set her fork down, and leaned back in the chair, her bronze waves bouncing, her voice quieting further,

"Do you know why she wished to visit Wonderland?" She borderline growled. He was going to shoot back something not entirely kind when the subject of their conversation approached excitedly, leaving the cat just a few steps behind.

"Marc!" She exulted, "Warren told me that they have a cool new ride at the Amusement Park. Can I go see it?" And she looked up at him hopefully,

"Hmm..." The Hatter pretended to think it over, and then smiled when she gave him her most heartbreaking set of puppy-dog eyes, "Sure, but eat your breakfast and finish your tea first." She grinned back,

"Okay!"

The Hatter spent the next half hour conversing sparsely with the cat while Evelyn meditated in her own shell of well-concealed anger.

/*\

When Warren decided it was time to leave, he picked the girl up and placed her on his shoulder, the button on his sleeve briefly catching on her shoe.

"Keep her safe." The Hatter warned,

"Don't worry, I'll bring her back in one piece." He absentmindedly responded, as the seven-year-old grasped at his long black hair, trying to keep herself stable. Once she was secure, the cat dashed away into the forest. Once the duo was out of sight, the Hatter's glare turned to the woman next to him, who had opened her mouth to speak.

"If you want to continue this conversation," he stood up, "Then we shall do so in the office."

Unfortunately for him, she was more than willing to continue fighting the issue.

/*\

"Wait, so..." Alice trailed off in her perplexity, trying to think over the roar of the crowd, "You're telling me that this ride has _animals_ on it? Not people-animals, but normal, snarly animals?" The little girl looked up at the Duchess disbelievingly. How would that even work? The graying woman nodded enthusiastically,

"Yes! And it's perfectly safe. They're all strapped into seats themselves, and their cars are entirely caged in. You can still experience the thrill of the roller-coaster while mixing in the adrenaline of a jungle chase, and no harm will come to you or them!"

"...So it's just a roller-coaster with a zoo on it." The girl decided, staring up at the yellow-clad lady as though she were not nearly as brilliant as she thought herself to be.

"Well when you put it that way..." she trailed off sheepishly, holding her mandolin at her hip. "Come on, you'll see how cool it really is once you've tried it yourself!" She started to herd the girl towards the line just a few meters away when the cat intervened, placing himself between the girl and his employer.

"Um...Mara?" He asked hesitantly, a faint accent poking through as one of his ears flattened uncertainly, "Are you sure that's a good idea? She's really small...I don't think she's big enough to sit in the car. She'll fall right out." The Duchess looked at him as though she were questioning his intelligence, and spoke slowly, as if he were stupid.

"That's why you're going to go with her."

 _Because that totally makes it okay_. He thought to himself irritably.

/*\

It didn't take long for the boy to notice the girl. But then, it didn't take anyone long to notice the girl, or her companion. They both smelled awful. Clearly, they had made a very poor decision somewhere in their day, and somehow ended up drenched in tiger puke.

It also didn't help that the girl's friend was yelling.

"WHAT MADE YOU THINK A RIDE LIKE THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA!" He shouted into the Park Owner's face. Although people stopped to watch the spectacle, the boy still had trouble hearing the whole argument. Yelling, definitely some screaming and...swears?

The man - the Amusement Park Cat? - had let go of the girl's hand to wave both of his own in the Duchess' face.

"YOU IDIOT ******!" A feminine gasp was heard,

"THERE ARE CHILDREN HERE!" She roared back,

In the meantime, the girl was the only one being practical. She walked away from the squabbling Role-Holders and approached the crowd of people, as there were no workers in sight.

"Does anyone know where I might be able to go clean up?" She asked, perfectly reasonable and polite, despite the fact that she must have felt humiliated and disgusting. No one answered, and by the looks of it, a few had taken a step back from her. The boy scoffed to himself. Sure, the customers might not have liked the smell, ever stronger under the heat of the noonday sun, but the poor girl was completely _covered_ in the reeking and no doubt gross substance. Though his own nose was far more sensitive than the queasy human faceless, he was fairly certain she was the person with the lesser luck.

His parents nowhere in sight, the boy pushed through the crowd.

"Come on," he waved to her, "I'll help you find a bathroom." She looked to him and nodded gratefully, and careful not to touch her, he led her away.

/*\

Naturally, the little girl had to change her clothes, as her blue dress was nowhere near salvageable. This left the boy in something of a bind.

It wasn't like he had a spare dress lying around. Nor could he leave her in her current state.

The boy liked to consider himself a gentleman, so he wasn't going to just abandon her in the restroom, especially since she wasn't a faceless. With a flick of his tail, and the swiveling of his ears, he instructed the girl to wait for him, promising his own return, and darted to the nearest fabric store.

/*\

The boy was not a stranger to shoplifting, but that was generally small candies and toys. Never had he attempted to steal a dress before.

 _Well_ , he thought to himself, _This'll definitely be interesting. New at least._ With that, he casually walked into the small boutique on the main street, as if it most certainly was not strange at all that an adolescent boy wanted to look at girls' clothes.

/*\

The cat-boy did not realize just how hard it would be to successfully snag a dress, even just a random one off the shelf. Down every aisle from the corners of the room, from thread and buttons to fully made pieces, the people would not stop looking at him. That wasn't normal, but then, neither were solitary boys in boutiques. He was at the complete center of attention, and that wasn't even the largest obstacle in his way.

He had no idea what he was looking for.

Frills, bows, colors...cuts? What was a cut? He didn't know, but he couldn't ask. He was in a store, with all eyes on him, needing a dress, with no money, and on a time limit.

 _This is one hell of a situation I've gotten myself into._ He thought despairingly, as he glared at a bright blue presentation, his ears flattened and his tail lashing. The dress was way too ornate and gaudy for what the girl needed, but this was the only mannequin that looked about the same size as her, but ultimately he had no way of actually knowing. He had come to terms with the fact that this particular mission would not be covert, but he had hoped for one thing.

That he might be able to figure out what he needed before something happened, namely, when the cashier approached him and asked what he was doing.

"Young man?" she asked sweetly, "Are you lost?"

"...No." He answered slowly. "I'm just...kind of in an awkward situation."

Though the notion of trouble was tempting, this would be a helluva thing to explain to his parents. Maybe he could get out of this more easily?

"Tell me about it." The cashier stated, and so the boy explained. The screaming match between the Role-Holders, the girl covered in animal vomit, her dire need for new clothes, and the girl's current station in a bathroom. The cashier winced sympathetically, her uniform crinkling as she stood back up.

"I'm very sorry young man," she stated, "But there's nothing I can do for you if you haven't any money."

"I was worried about that," the boy stated, "But luckily I have a backup plan." He announced proudly. The cashier laughed,

"And what's that?" The boy grinned in spite of himself,

"This." And he shot a thread spool up at a light bulb. While everyone was distracted by the broken glass and the sparking of the exposed electrical wire, he took the opportunity to grab the mannequin directly in front of him and start running.

/*\

"Alice!" The Duchess called, pushing through the myriads of customers clogging the streets.

"Alice!" The Cheshire Cat repeated, equally worried, shoving past a man on a bike, glancing around wildly, his striped tail lashing.

So far, most people had liked the Foreigner, but because she was under the protection of the Role-Holders - well most of them - Wonderland was still a very dangerous place for her. They had enemies, more than just each other.

If the wrong people found her, it could end in a manner quite disastrous.

/*\

Alice sat in the public bathroom entirely bored and starting to worry. She had managed to wash most of the nastiness out of her hair with the hand soap, and she had disposed of her now-useless blue smock. The boy told her he would put an out-of-order sign on the door to keep out other people, and told her he'd be right back with something she could use.

It seemed that he had been gone an awfully long time.

If he didn't return soon, she would have to kill him for lying.

/*\

The boy was panicking. Normally, it was easy to hide in crowds. It would be a simple maneuver to hide his prize in a pocket or in his shirt. Not so in this instance. People ducked and screamed and stared, and several tried to stop him by leaping in his way.

Had it not been for his feline agility, he would have been caught in mere seconds, and even then it was difficult just to hang on to the ridiculously heavy object.

The bathroom felt a long ways away.

/*\

When the Duchess heard that a boy had stolen a dress from one of the more expensive boutiques in the park, she reamed the worker for wasting her time. The priority was Alice, not some little thieving punk.

When Warren - still unfortunately messy from the roller-coaster - got wind of the situation, however, he felt pretty sure he knew why a boy might steal a dress.

/*\

Finally, he had made it. As of yet, nothing had happened. He'd cleared all of the obstacles, and he had managed to evade the grasp of every single person who'd attempted to capture him.

He'd even succeeded in keeping the dress in one piece, and the out-of-order sign was entirely in sight. Just a few more yards over the bricks, under the tree, and BAM. He'd be there.

Yes, this distinct endeavor was a little absurd. No doubt his strangest project, but this was by far his most challenging escapade yet.

/*\

Something slammed into the bathroom door, and Alice jumped.

"Hey!" A voice called, "Open the door!" Naturally, being only barely clothed, Alice was disinclined to do so. So she went and hid in a stall.

"It's open!" She called, and the door slammed wide, and looking through the gap in the stall divider, she saw the cat-boy lock the door behind him while worker upon park worker threw themselves into it. The boy set down...a mannequin?

A mannequin with clothes on it.

"Get dressed!" The boy yelled.

"Turn away!"

"Right! Right." And he moved to stare at the wall as the tiny girl fought to disrobe the inanimate object.

/*\

"I never asked your name!" The girl stated, doing her best to zip up the back of the blue garment, people still yelling through the locked bathroom door.

"Boris." the boy stated, never turning.

"Alice." She responded. The boy waved with the back of his hand,

"Nice to meet you Alice." Just then a loud, booming voice startled the two children into facing the door.

"BORIS ALEXANDER AIRAY!" It was definitely a woman speaking, but Alice's new friend was clearly afraid.

"She used your middle name." Alice said in a mixture of awe and amusement before glancing up to his face. "You're dead." His ears flattened.

"If I die, it's your fault."

/*\

"What, exactly, did you think you were going to do with a dress?" The older cat asked, upset though bemused. The ten-year-old angrily gestured to the girl with a face, who was now conversing with Warren Spade, the Cheshire Cat's tail twitching as he fought a smile.

"She needed clothes!" He spat, irritated. The one time he uses his skills for good...

"Why did she need clothes? Doesn't she have parents too?" His mother questioned,

"She's a Foreigner," Boris interjected, "She's got no one and the Duchess made her go on a ride where she got covered in puke and no one else was helping her." His parents shared a look before his father spoke,

"Boris, your mother and I love you, you're not one to help other people unless you can get something from it." The cat's ears flattened,

"So you mean to say I'm incapable of kindness?" He hissed, feeling more than a little offended. Yes, he was a rather rebellious kid, and he liked to cause trouble, but that didn't mean he was inherently evil. "Sure, it looked challenging, but I couldn't just leave her in the bathroom with ruined stuff. Do you have any idea how hard it was to run with that mannequin?!" His father was going to respond when the girl approached the trio.

"Um, hello." she stated, Warren watching carefully from several steps behind, "I wanted to apologize to Boris."

All three stared at her as though she had just told them she was an alien being, hailing from the stars, and was going to bring about the apocalypse.

She got the feeling that this family was not use to being relieved of the blame. Was _that_ a feeling she could relate to.

"What for?" Boris questioned, "You didn't do anything." The girl placed a finger to her chin thoughtfully,

"Technically," she conceded, "I suppose not, but still. You got into a lot of trouble for me. So I wanted to say I was sorry." Then she looked up to the boy's parents, "And please don't be too harsh on him for this. He was just trying to help." His mother laughed,

"I think all three of us - Boris especially - appreciates your high opinion. However you don't know him. He likes to cause chaos for the sake of chaos." And though these words might have been spoken with a clear undertone of irritation, she still rested her hand on her son's shoulder in a clearly affectionate manner. Alice merely shrugged.

"Maybe that's true, but it doesn't change the fact that he helped." She laid her bright aqua eyes on the shortest cat once more. "Even if the help wasn't the priority, thank you anyway." And she turned back to the Role-Holder, when the boy himself spoke.

"Hey Alice," he stated, "Would you want to play again sometime? Something _not_ involving theft." To this the girl smiled,

"Absolutely."

 **/*\**

 **Not many people seemed to like this one, but I really like to write the Role-Holders as kids. And I kind of wanted to go somewhere with these past Role-Holders that I've invented, as I've given them more and more personality in not only my spinoffs, but also in the Old Role Series, so I wanted to start exploring these characters a little more before continuing my main storyline while still incorporating the cannon characters. What better way to do that than have them be the people that Alice met as a child?**

 **-Static**


End file.
